News

Jack White’s ‘Lazaretto’ tops Billboard 200, vinyl charts

JACK WHITE:"Lazaretto," the second solo album from the former White Stripes rocker, sold 138,000 copies in the United States its first week according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. Photo: Reuters

y Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rocker Jack White shot straight to the top of the weekly Billboard 200 chart on Wednesday with his latest solo album, the only new record to crack the top 10 this week.

“Lazaretto,” the second solo album from the former White Stripes rocker, sold 138,000 copies in the United States its first week according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

His debut solo album “Blunderbuss” also sold 138,000 copies in its opening week in 2012.

“Lazaretto” sold 40,000 copies in vinyl, topping the Billboard Vinyl Albums chart and earning the highest first-week U.S. sales for a vinyl record since SoundScan began charting music sales in 1991, White’s publicist said in a statement.

White has been a big champion of vinyl, including many special bonus features on “Lazaretto Ultra LP.”

Last week’s chart-topper, country singer Miranda Lambert’s “Platinum,” dropped to No. 2 this week with second week sales of 62,000, while the soundtrack to Disney’s hit animated princess film “Frozen” dropped to No. 3 with sales of 50,000.

For the week ending June 15, overall album sales totaled 4.6 million units, down 12 percent from the comparable week in 2013, Billboard said.